I'm here in L.A. to interview a movie star — excuse me, an actor. Excuse me, a regular guy like other regular guys who happens to act but whose work as an actor in no way defines him.

Anyway, my hotel is in Venice, and the actor always wants to meet in the same staggeringly expensive place in Santa Monica, so I walk up there along the boardwalk to each in our series of interviews. It's easier than dealing with valet parking.

And so it came to pass that each time I went to meet this regular guy, I passed an establishment called Doctor Kush. Outside, it had a sandwich board and a barker (usually a hot Russian female) calling out sales pitches:

Doctor Kush didn't seem like a medical establishment, I must say. It had long, wooden benches like in a pee-wee league dugout and it was open to the boardwalk, with a sandy floor and a shabby little cell in the back for the examinations. A sad-faced doctor sat waiting within, staring into space. It had the feeling of a booth in an amusement park.

The second time past, my years of rigorous journalism training kicked into gear. I asked the Natasha on duty how long it took to get a license. Ten minutes, she said. And how much did it cost? A hundred-and-fifty dollars. But for me? Tonight? Eighty.

Alas, I said, I'm from New York.

No problem! "Are you staying in a hotel? Motel? You can put that address down."

But will they mail me the license or put it in my hot little hand? Because I'm leaving in a few days.

They will put it in my hot little hand, she said.

I thanked her and continued to dinner.

Still rankled, I sought to redeem myself the next day by a more rigorous application of my professional skills. I filled out three forms and handed over my driver's license and was shortly ushered into the examining room.

The doctor was a pleasant, tired-looking woman in a white coat named Carolyn. She was moonlighting from her regular job as a plastic surgeon, she said. I was her first customer on her very first day. She took my blood pressure, palpated my liver, and asked about my symptoms.

"Chronic pain," I said, which is true. A motorcycle wreck left me permanently mangled. I've already had one knee replaced.

"That's one of the best indications," she said, sounding a bit relieved.

Out I went, and five minutes later the Natasha handed me a little green card with the Medical Kush Doctor logo, a scan of my driver's license, and this legend:

This is to verify that Richardson John would probably benefit from compassionate medical cannabis use, is recommended by me as satisfying the requirements of H&S code 11262.5 and SB20.

I walked out and proceeded directly to Doctor Kush's associated establishment, the Medical Kush Beach Club, which is right across from Muscle Beach and up a narrow flight of stairs. After a sign-in process that involves checking my license on a computer, a large uniformed security guard ushered me down another narrow hall to the "club," which is basically a one-bedroom apartment that's been converted into a little pharmacy, with a glass barrier like the kind you see in ghetto liquor stores protecting two gigging clerks (more pretty women) and lots of different kinds of pot in white tubs on racks. A flat-panel screen displayed names of the products, stuff like Porn Star and OG Kush and Cookies & Cream. In the next room, a barmaid stood behind a long low bar stocked with large glass bongs. A couple of guys lounged around.

But I came back that night after my interview. Bridget recommended the Granddaddy Kush, so I took a place at the hash bar and watched the bartender fire up a blowtorch and heat a glass rod which, when it was glowing a cozy red, she applied to the bowl of the bong. "Tell me when you want me to pull the bowl," she said.

My cheeks went concave. Her fingers stayed poised by the bowl. The smoke was surprisingly mild and sweet. Finally I signaled and she pulled out the bowl and cool air chased the smoke down my lungs.

For the next few minutes, just like any guy sitting at any bar, I chatted up the bartender. She was friendly and so relaxed, one of those solidly rooted California earth-goddess hippies that you want to common-law marry and give lots of fat jolly babies. And we'd have a tricked-out van and spend weeks camping at beaches...

I left a few minutes later, feeling very much like a man who stopped off for a cold one on the way home — quite a difference from the furtive forays to the criminal underworld that knowledgeable sources so often describe. So civilized. A security guard! Safety, rules, order — imagine!

As I walked back to the hotel, it seemed very strange that any society would want it different. You don't want rules and security guards? You'd rather thrust this relatively mild and commonplace activity into a criminal world where the law is enforced by biker gangs and Mexican cartels, thus guaranteeing their continued profits and monopoly power? Tell me again, why?

Look, I'd hate it if my kids became stoners. I'd hate it more if they became alcoholics. But that doesn't mean:

A) I'd want them to get arrested for smoking a bong hit or two on a Saturday night; or that...

B) I'd want to use the awesome power of the law to force the entire world to behave as I would like my children to behave.

Law-enforcement types always fear the carnage on our highways or the laziness of our citizenry should marijuana become legal. Jerry Brown actually asked how we were going to compete with China if everyone is stoned. This idea is rooted in the vaguely religious fear that the "sin" of pot-smoking is so damn attractive that as soon as it become legal, everyone will rush out and plunge her face into the nearest bong. But my experience suggests that anyone who wants to be legal in California is already legal, which suggests that anybody who wants to smoke pot is already smoking pot. On the way back to my hotel, in fact, I passed two similar establishments within two blocks: the Green Goddess Medical Marijuana Collective and Canna Safe. The cat is out of the bag, folks. The law is nothing but a fig leaf that can be purchased with an $80 medical exam from any barker on the boardwalk.

It's a joke. And it's not good policy to make the law into a joke.

Oddly, though, pot arrests haven't gone done in California at all. According to the Bureau of Criminal Statistics, the state had 17,008 felony and 61,164 misdemeanor marijuana arrests in 2009. The year before, it had 78,514, which was the highest number since California decriminalized the drug in 1976. Apparently most California potheads don't want to pay the $80, don't live near a dispensary, don't trust the government, or just prefer to walk on the wild side.

The result is, California has the worst of both worlds. Marijuana is essentially legal, but people still go to jail for it and the state still spends millions of dollars in police time, court costs, and prison cells for no reason. It's stupid. There's no other word for it, no rational justification. We are paying for our hypocrisy with wasted taxes and the wreckage of other people's lives.

And for what it's worth, I forgot my pain completely, slept like a baby, and woke up refreshed.